I am Dave: hear me roar

I uploaded a photo!

2007-06-03T19:32:00.001+10:00

Playing with Windows Live Writer

2007-06-01T17:46:00.001+10:00

I've just installed beta two of Windows Live Writer, and despite not having the settings to upload images, all seems well. It's certainly a much nicer environment to create and edit blog posts in. And it works with loads of different services (though Live Spaces, which I presume it has the most support for, is filtered by work for some nonsense reason).

Well then, let's see if this posts.

Look at these 'beauties'

2007-01-03T23:14:00.000+10:00

'The idea souvenir from Australia', apparently. Not feral-looking tissue box covers with children with big plastic lips on? Must be my eyes.

Only 15 bucks too. Montville has definitely got the tourist gift niche sorted.

How rancid are these?

In exactly 24 hours time I'll be getting on a plane and coming home, but first I need to go to bed. See you all soon!

2007 is the new 2006

2007-01-01T18:29:00.000+10:00

Happy New Year everyone. I tried to text some of you when the midnight hour came around, however all the local mobile networks told my roaming phone to sod off, so those of you that did receive a text didn’t get it until about 7am my time.

On Saturday Phil, mum and I went to Brisbane for the weekend. We had to leave Phil 2 behind on the Sunshine Coast - he has been diagnosed with Glandular Fever, bacterial Tonsillitis, a full body rash, and an ear infection, all at once. He’s been sleeping most of the past ten days. If his ear infection doesn’t clear up in the next three days he won’t be able to fly home. Lucky bugger. Still, he’s starting to look a little brighter. Using a very handy website called wotif.com the three of us managed to book ourselves into the posh 5 star Stamford Plaza hotel on the river for a fifth of the usual price. We’d managed to get the most expensive rooms that weren’t in a suite for next to nothing. So what made it posh? Was it the panoramic view from my 21st floor bedroom window? The in room DVD player? The Italian marble bathroom? The doorbell for the room? No my friend. It was the three telephones in my room. One of which was next to the toilet. I was sorely tempted to order room service whilst making space for it at the same time (it’s an efficiency thing), until I noticed how much room service cost. After I’d managed to avoid swallowing my tongue in shock I put the receiver down and walked away.

View from my room

More view from my room

We took a river cat to South Bank to have a ganders at a part of Brisbane I’ve never seen before. It’s got the upcoming trendiness of Southbank in London, except the renovation work is pretty much complete. There’s even a small ‘Streets’ (the Aussie version of Walls Ice Cream) ‘beach’ complete with lifesavers. The water is chlorinated and in a closed loop so it’s not really a true beach. Beachette would be a better word, though the Oxford English would probably beg to differ. I couldn’t quite understand why there were lifeguards there either; do many people drown when standing in waist high water? Whilst Southbank is all impressive modern buildings and trendy City living, South Bank is all about getting away from the crush of the City high risers and getting into the crush of a tiny chlorinated ‘beach’ with approximately fifteen billion tourists.

Whilst we were waiting for the next river cat back to the City, we were minding our own business when we heard what sounded like a pair of rubber wellies being dropped ten metres onto tarmac. Closer inspection (well, I say closer, it was more like ‘a safe distance of about 3 barge poles’), revealed the sound to have come from a two foot possum at (plus two foot tail) falling ten metres onto tarmac and narrowly avoiding hitting a group of (now rather startled) Chinese tourists. Think of it as a two foot orange rat with the face of a cat and you’ll be on the right track. Nobody screamed or anything. At least, not on the outside. But you could tell from the expression some people were wearing that they were trying desperately not to freak out and run away.

South Bank (site of Possum incident)

A MAN-SIZED disco ball at South Bank

In the evening we went to the Treasury Casino and then for a meal at a Teppanyaki restaurant called Kabuki. It was much fun and I ate so much that I nearly died (comparable to a Tom-sized starter). Three groups of people share a table that has a big hot plate in the middle and the chef cooks in front of you whilst throwing things in the air and making you catch eggs in bowls (that end up all over you). We were sat with a NZ couple and an Aussie family of three from the ‘look how much money we have but our lives are empty and we hate each other’ school of thinking. Halfway through the meal our chef was chopping the now cooked egg (that we’d each caught raw with varying success) for the rice with some theatrics, and when he got to the end he chipped a bit off that went sailing towards the rich mum of the family. She threw what is technically referred to as a ‘hissy fit’ in the business, and demanded that the chef walk away from the table. Obviously he wasn’t going anywhere since he still had seven other people to cook for so she just got all angry and walked out herself. Her husband didn’t bother following and after ten minutes she came back in, had a minor tantrum, ordered her husband and daughter to leave with her, and promptly started an argument with her husband outside the restaurant. They dragged the manager out and everything. The remaining diners (myself included) exchanged relieved smiles, stopped studying our bowls of rice with fevered concentration, and found our attention split between the chef’s acrobatics and the fight going on outside. Best dinner entertainment ever.

In the restaurant they had a cabinet containing the chopsticks of celebrities who had dined at the restaurant too. In that case was a set of chopsticks for the Black Eyed Peas. Apparently they only need one set between them.

Back to Buderim.

For those of you who are interested, extensive research by myself today has found that the album ‘9’ by Damien Rice is the best album to burn to whilst sunbathing. I’ll forever associate the line ‘Tell ‘em I’ve been cooking coconut skins, and we’ve been hanging out’ with third degree sunburn. It doesn’t help that my after sun lotion is coconut scented.

New Year’s Eve was pretty much a non-event/endurance task this year. We spent NYE in the house playing card games and watching bloody awful films on TCM. It had a certain element of family time cringeworthiness to it, but it was nice. Midnight came; we each downed a glass of champagne, and went to bed.

Here’s to our best year yet.

The Aussie take on Christmas window displays

CSI: Buderim

2006-12-28T18:57:00.000+10:00

I learnt an important lesson about chopping boards on Christmas day to the detriment of my taste buds. More about that later.

Meanwhile, I made my 23rd CD purchase today. It’s my first 100% bona-fide skiphop CD. Skiphop? Yea, I was just as bemused. From what I’ve been able to determine it’s basically just hiphop from Australia, which apparently warrants it a whole separate section in the record store. It’s a fun, if tacky, moniker for the genre, and I’m assuming it’s got a light-hearted name since nobody can take a rapper with an Australian accent seriously. Especially when he’s spouting such corkers as ‘We ain’t sic, boy we just seem crook’ and ‘You’re best to believe in the Muph!’ (rock out mister Tom – you hear me!). I parted with my $25 at JB HiFi and came away clutching ‘Hunger Pains’ by Muph and Plutonic. I’d finally lost my skiphop virginity.

The cats have been treating us to a selection of local wildlife over the past few days, most notably the HUGE TARANTULA that turned up on Christmas Eve. Granted it’s not the largest I’ve seen in Australia, not by a long shot. But this one was IN MY HOUSE. Well, on the window. Forensic evidence suggests the following events led to the discovery of the spider: At some time between 4am (when the cats get let out of the house) and 8am (when the cats come in for food) one of them spotted the victim and initiated some kind of chase/battle during which the victim suffered the loss of three legs. This has been backed up by the lack of amputated legs visible around the crime scene. Cat X then brought the victim to the house, deposited it somewhere, and got bored. The victim managed to evade cat X and scampered up a wall and hid behind the massive thermometer that leans against the window. At approx 8.30am my mother discovered the victim. Apart from the amputated legs, the victim appeared to be of good health, and after a photo shoot for the records (from a very cautious distance, since these buggers can *move* when they want to) it was deposited into the forestland behind the house, and a swift retreat was made. Christ, I’ve managed to spin that out a bit. Here’s a shot of the beast. For reference purposes, that thermometer is about 8 inches long.

Exhibit A - the victim

Exhibit B - a suspect

So the chopping board lesson:

When you’re chopping the kiwifruit for a fruit pavlova, ensure you use a different side of the chopping board to the one that you’d used to chop the onions on the night before. That way, when you’re serving up your delicious desert on Christmas day, you don’t realise with abject horror when you take a bite along with the other family and friends that you’ve just dished up a strawberry, kiwi, onion and fresh cream pavlova for desert. The perfect way to round off Christmas dinner. Pass the gravy.

Some fungus

Some shoes

Well it wouldn’t be a holiday without a trip to the doctors

2006-12-21T14:35:00.000+10:00

So, not to disappoint, I managed to mess up my foot somehow when I was in Sydney and now I’ve been advised to stay off it for the next three days, meaning I’m going to have to convince some other poor unsuspecting soul to take care of my Christmas shopping for me. (This is the part where I lean back and cackle menacingly). So it looks like Phil and Phil will be heading off to Sunshine Plaza on my behalf, armed with sufficiently vague advice as ‘get so-and-so something they’ll like’. Specifics are so last year.

And Phil I has Tonsillitis.

On the wedding...
Mamie got married to Les last week, and since Phil (brother) and I were giving her away we all flew down south for a long weekend. The ceremony was held in the garden and luckily it was a cloudy day so the temperature was comfortable enough to wear long sleeved shirts. The guy who performed the ceremony must’ve been, oh, about 600, and wore the thickest pair of glasses I’ve ever seen. It’s a good job the sun wasn’t out – he’d have had his eyes burnt away. It would have been like using a magnifying glass on ants.
The ceremony itself was beautiful and went without a hitch. I must admit I got a little teary eyed at a couple of points, but managed to cover that up with the camera!

Mamie

Mamie and Les

On the new relatives...
The crazy thing that happens when your grandmother gets married is that your family tree suddenly explodes. As soon as their signatures hit the paper you’re instantly related to everyone at the ceremony. Before that, you’re only related to about 10%. So it’s even more embarrassing when one of them has too much to drink. Sure, they can make a fool of themselves *before* they’re related to you, but not after. Here’s a running tally of new relatives I know of:

1x step grandfather
2x step uncles (one pending)
3x step aunts
6x step cousins

There are probably more that I don’t even know exist. I know I haven’t met one or two of my new step cousins yet...

Here are some of my step cousins: Alana and her brother Alec, and Bronwyn and her sister Karyn.

Alec

Alana and Bronwyn

Karyn

Turns out that Bronwyn will be moving to London in mid January, so we’ve swapped numbers in case we fancy grabbing a coffee sometime.

On charades...
After the food (of which there was masses), some fool suggested we play charades. To be fair, that’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than listening to Les explain how to do something, which is what usually happens whenever there’s a gap in conversation. But charades is still rubbish. Unless you’ve got a camera, at which point it becomes a whole lot more interesting. When else can you get candid shots of people pulling silly poses/faces? I must admit I did a little evil purr. I’m even looking forward to the inevitable charades at Christmas. I’m so gonna burn for this.

Phil (brother)

Phil (not brother)

Malcolm

Les (new step grandfather)

Theona (new step aunt)

On Christmas lights...
And we thought it was bad in Blackbird Lees. The Australians appear to take Christmas lights very seriously indeed. In fact, just yesterday my mum had to help one of our neighbours down from his roof after he became stranded putting his lights up. You should be able to see it from space now. Below are a few camera-shake stricken snaps from the streets surrounding Mamie’s house (and yes, that *is* Santa coming out of the blowhole of a whale):

On the Sunday Mum and Malcolm headed back to the Sunshine Coast, and back to the hot weather. It was raining when we arrived in Sydney and was unseasonably chilly but things were slowly starting to pick up. The two Phils and I had booked a couple of days in a hotel in Sydney to give us chance to have a good look around. We went to the Australian Museum on the Tuesday and had a good look around. TWO ENTIRE FLOORS were devoted to geology. Which is probably pretty interesting if, like my brother, you’re studying it at uni. But for the other Phil and I it wasn’t the most entertaining part of the whole experience. The bones exhibition was pretty cool though. Especially the ‘Bone Ranger’:

Bone Ranger

They also had two photographic competition exhibitions on; the ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year’ and ‘Up Close and Spineless’, a competition of photographs of invertebrates. I’d advise you to check out the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, there are some awesome shots in there, especially one of penguins having a slapping fight.

On brand names...

"BAM! And the dirt is gone!"

What’s going on there? Where’s Barry Scott? I’ll be having words.

It’s getting hotter. And hotter. And Phil and Phil are getting more and more burnt.

Oh, and I’ve just found out that my mate George staged a walk out at her work the other day after an arsey email from a director. How cool is that?! It might be giving me ideas...

Thanks for all your emails chaps, they’ve been making me chuckle every now and then. Nice to know that you’re all starting to unwind for Christmas. Must admit I got a pang of homesickness yesterday after watching some holiday special where it was all cold and snowy and Christmassy. This just doesn’t feel like Christmas. It was only yesterday I realised we didn’t even have a tree up. Things like that just don’t cross your mind when it’s in the thirties and takes a lot of effort to keep cool. So keep the emails and texts coming, especially as I’m gonna be housebound for the next three days!

And if I don’t say it before the day itself, have a happy Christmas everyone!

You call that a moth? This is a moth!

2006-12-14T19:27:00.000+10:00

My brother Phil and his mate Phil arrived from the UK on Monday night. The flight they took from Heathrow was overbooked, so they were offered 400 euro and a free upgrade to business class if they delayed their flights by 4 hours. They didn’t take it as they’d traveled down to London the night before and had about 4 hours of broken sleep at the check in desks and just wanted to get here. I blatantly would’ve done. But that’s just cos I’m cheap. Singapore even said that they’d cover food and hotel expenses should the flight be delayed further.

Monday I spent helping out at the family business. I stuffed 2 catalogues and 6 leaflets into 400 envelopes. One of them was to Humpty Doo, which is in the Northern Territories, of course.

And who says you’ve gotta travel around Europe to get random brand names when you can find crap that’s just as random as the best in Sweden in your local Woolworths? (See photos below)

Wow, only $1 for 200g of Tiny Bears?!

Can’t get enough of them Elbows

Phil shows off his Blood and Bone

Last night Oscar (one of the cats) caught a giant moth. And this ain’t no regular giant moth. This thing was the size of a small bird, so it’s understandable how a cat might have got confused.

Giant moth

A grasshopper thing

I bought more CDs in Brisbane today:

The Devoted Few – ‘Billborad Noises’
The Little Stevies – ‘Grow up’
The Grates – ‘Gravity won’t get you high’
Sarah Blasko – ‘What the sea wants, the sea will have’
Various – ‘She will have her way – the songs of Tim & Neil Finn’
Faker – ‘Addicted Romantic’

Tomorrow we’re heading off to Sydney for a few days – firstly there’s the wedding in Woolongong (where we’ll be staying on Fri and Sat night), then the two Phils and I have booked into a hotel in Sydney for two nights. It’ll be a nice opportunity to get to know Sydney a little better. I’ve been there about three or four times before, but I’ve only been able to spend a few hours there. Will be nice to explore the nightlife a little too…

'Too messy'

2006-12-09T20:32:00.000+10:00

The weather is still being odd.

Normally around this time of year it's impossible to move without sweating so much you leave a trail like a slug behind you. But this year things have been a little strange on the Sunshine Coast. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful weather. We've been getting a nice cooling breeze that has been taking the edge off the heat of the sun and the humidity has even been lower than 95%! It has actually been pleasant to be out in the sun (though you still can't go out barefoot unless you have a fetish for third degree burns on the soles of your feet). I'm hoping it's gonna last through to Christmas, but it's probably going to settle back to normal before long.

I spoke to my Mamie (grandmother) yesterday. She lives in NSW near Woolongong and has the luxury of central air in the house. Apparently they've had a few 42 degree days that drop suddenly to 18 degrees come 7pm. It's not been that drastic here, but the past two nights I've had to put jeans and a jumper on. I wasn't expecting that. Only packed one jumper. Bugger. Not even taken a dip in the pool yet.

Went up to Point Cartwright this afternoon after spending $113 on CDs at JBHiFi. Love that shop. Well, apart from the searches that you get subjected to when entering or leaving the store. That bit I could do without. I grabbed (purchased legally) the following:

The Living End - 'State of emergency'
Gotye - 'Like drawing blood'
Bob Evans - 'Suburban songbook'
The Audreys - 'Between last night and us'
You Am I - 'Convicts' (problem with site at moment)
Cake - 'Comfort eagle'

So why the trip to PC? To play with my new telephoto and catch some 'sic' surfing shots of course. Except there wasn't any surfing to be shot. Apparently the waves were too 'messy', which is a technical term for 'they all keep getting big but then breaking early so there's lots of the white bits and not much of the green-blue wave bits'. At least that's how I understand it. There were a couple of people bodyboarding but that just wasn't cool. I fired off a few shots but wasn't happy with them. Mainly because I was shaking like a be-atch and most of them suffered motion blur. Bloody telephotos.

Tonight we decided to order fish and chips from the local take away for dinner. This ain't yer usual battered cod and chips. You choose the fish and how you want it prepared, which is pretty sweet. I had breaded Tasmanian salmon.

I'm all bunged up.

I got an email from a mate last night telling me that things have been going pretty crazy weather-wise in the UK. I didn't think much of it till I saw a MSN story about how London got blown down last week. Tom says Telehouse is still standing, though he reckons that's cos he wasn't on call, and if he was then Telehouse would've probably been blown into the English Channel and sunk.

And my phone works! So send me stuff!

Dave has landed

2006-12-08T21:02:00.000+10:00

What do you do on a plane for twelve hours when you're pinned against the window by the overweight woman sat next to you? How are you gonna take your mind off the situation? Sleep? Not at 11am. Eat? No, for you are in the scummy economy and can't snap your fingers for food. Watch a movie on the entertainment system? No, as your handset controls the screen of the bloke sat two seats away, and vice-versa. Listen to some music on the entertainment system? No, as the sound for your screen is also coming out of the arm rest of the bloke sat two seats away.

Once you've explained the problem to the cabin crew, (who reckon rebooting the entertainment system for your seat three times will sort the issue), and they've told you that there aren't *any* seats on board that they can move you to, they'll recommend the ideal solution. A deck of cards and an Asian movie review magazine. Perfect. That'll keep me entertained for twelve hours. I'll just play cards with myself and read about the latest release from Binda Humgee Studios SEVENTEEN TIMES. Rurr.

Luckily I remembered I had my mac with me. It took a mixure of aerobatics, wit and cunning to extract myself from my seat, climb over two snoring fatties, and dig out my mac from the overhead locker. But I did it. And I felt like a Holywood stuntman. I realised I had to ration my usage of it so the battery would see me through this flight and the next, so I watched an episode of Heros (cheers mister Strath) and tried to get onto the free wireless network on board. Which wasn't working, obviously. It wasn't until I got over the Bay of Bengal that it started working, which was ten hours into my flight. I managed to send a couple of 'woo I've got broadband on a plane' emails before the system packed up.

At least the food was good though. Get this for a breakfast: selection of fruit, cereal, bread roll, spiced ginger pork noodles, and a cuppa. Perfect.

I've spent the past couple of days just settling in really. Took some photos with my lovely new lens - see below (you shut your face, mister Roy), and just tried to acclimatise.

Phil and Phil arrive on Monday night, so looking forward to that.

Oh yea, I've already started buying music. Just got 'Black Fingernails Red Wine' by Eskimo Joe who won the ARIA a couple of weeks ago. Is gud.

Here is a photo of the lovely George on her birthday that I found on a memory card:

And here are two shots of these tiny baby grasshopper things that I found by the pool. They are about 7mm in length.

Wireless at 42,000 feet

2006-12-06T10:26:00.000+10:00

Gah. Crappy Singapore video on demand service is knackered on my seat. Basically my remote changes the TV screen of the bloke two seats away, and vice-versa. Audio is also fooked.

Did I mention I'm actually on the plane at the moment? Turns out that wireless is free this month on board, and it even supports macs! So until I managed to get the wireless up and running (it took a while, believe me) I'd just been sitting in the dark whilst everyone around me is watching lovely on demand content. Rarr.

Still, only another 3 hours left on this flight, then it's on to Brisbane on a comparatively short 8 1/2 hour jaunt. Need to get there before I bore myself to death. Any why aren't any of you on messenger to entertain me, hmm?

'Crikey!'

2005-12-30T16:18:00.000+10:00

Two days ago (Wednesday) we took a trip out into the hinterland. In my opinion it should be called das hinterland, but since very few Germans live there there's not much of a case for the name change.

But I digress.

We set off early, pointing the car west and enjoying the air conditioned comfort it offered, whilst all around us the world slowly got hotter and starker. After crossing the escarpment, the landscape started to drain of colour. It was as if the grass and few trees needed colour as well as water to live, and were gradually bleeding the colour from the landscape. In the few places where trees had managed to grow, the scenery was breathtaking.

We ambled on and on through the hinterland, until we came to a place called Linville, where the road aprubtly turned into a dirt track. This was true ocka-land. These guys don't even get mains water, instead they pay extortionate amounts of money to have tankers come and fill up their enormous water tanks every week. Linville itself could never really be described as a village, or even a township. There is one street, and seven houses. Despite this there is a pub and general store, however these serve people in the surrounding area too. The most striking feature of the place is the abandoned railway station, which has a small 70's QR train sat on a rail that struggles against and eventually gives up to the bushland only metres from the carridges. As a sign proudly proclaims, the Linville train station is a community restoration project. The sign neglects to mention from when this restoration began, or when it is expected to complete, but this is understandable since the 'community' likely consists of no more than twenty people.

The locals in the villages in this area seem to have found a unique method of recycling old tractors/cars/ploughs, by leaving them in their front gardens and allowing them to rust and become overgrown, thus becoming interesting lawn ornaments. And most cases it works remarkably well, save for a few more eccentric homeowners who turn their gardens into massive graveyards of half consumed farm machinery. It's almost like putting a stone in your house with the year it was built; the older your rotting ute is, the longer your family has been here. Much like the British do with old sofas I guess...

Thursday: The Brisbane Sales

In a nutshell: a disappointment. By the 29th of December, anything in the sales that was my size had been bought already. A perfect example of sod's law. I did head over to Rocking Horse Records though and make a few purchases:

Wolfmother - 'Wolfmother'
Josh Pyke - 'Recordings 2002 - 2005'
The Beautiful Girls - 'Learn yourself'
The Boat People - 'yesyesyesyesyes'
Decoder Ring - 'Fractions'

Reckon I'll be needing a bigger suitcase for the journey back...

Which brings us rather neatly to today. Mum and I set of at about 10am to Australia Zoo. I've been there before, but the place has expanded to almost twice the size it was. There is an enormous new 'Crocoseum' that seats 5000, and is more like a sports venue than a zoo. We saw tigers and birds, then (after a ridiculous warm up), Steve Irwin and his (odd) wife Terri showed up for the main croc show. It was really entertaining until the croc went off to chew some food, and wouldn't swallow it. Steve had to disappear for a couple of minutes to coax it back into the holding pen, leaving Terri centrestage to entertain us. So she started telling us about how she and Steve first met and how brave he is and blah blah (vomit), much to the bewilderment of her audience who'd just come to watch Steve throw himself around with some crocodiles, not listen to some strange American woman belt on about Steve praying for a girlfriend before she came along.

Bocksing Day

2005-12-26T17:54:00.000+10:00

'Boxing day is here, tra la la la laaa', or so the famous song goes (honestly, it does). It's here on the Sunshine Coast and already the sale madness has started. Naturally I'll be diving in head first myself in the coming days, but until I succumb to the sales fever (current bets are on for tomorrow) I'll enjoy the feeling of superiority.

After getting all the preparations out of the way on Christmas eve, I went toddling outside with Mr Nikon and did a bit more shooting:

Flower

Tigger

Christmas lights

After a very warm and sticky night, Christmas day arrived fuelled with uberheat. The temperature was already climbing when we went next door (at 8am I might add) for breakfast 'alfresco', and by the time I left (10am) it was already 34 degrees. Everyone went straight into the pool, which was at a cosy 33 itself. By lunchtime the temperature reached a plateu of 37 degrees (and that was in the shade). We couldn't move. Like beached whales we all lay around trying not to exert any effort that might generate any heat. Bruce and Margaret arrived around 3pm, and by that stage the cloud had started to gather. After checking the aussie government weather warnings site, we were warned that a severe storm would be passing right over Buderim later on in the day. On the plus side, the temperature started to fall to a more comfortable 31, but the humidity started to rocket. Halfway through Christmas dinner (outside obviously), the storm began.

Out here you usually hear storms before you see them. The thunder and lightning is a consistant feature, not like in the the UK. We had about an hour of rumbling and flashing without a drop of rain, then suddenly there were two gunshots from next door. Luckily they weren't gunshots, just the lightning hitting a tree. Scared the roast potatoes out of us I can tell you. Then the rain began. Fate was on our side and we didn't get any hail with this one (the hail out here is the size of tennis balls, and is infamous for trashing car windscreens and concussing people), but we easily got a couple of inches of rain. The rain passed, but the thunder and lightning continued for another two or three hours. I managed to catch a bit of it, will probably do some proper storm chasing tonight though.

The storm

By the evening I was knackered. The storm had cleared away most of the heat and humidity so I had a pretty good nights sleep.

Today we went to the beach, and I tried my hand at sports photography. I was hindered slightly by the zoom capability of the lens I was using (56-200mm [300mm equiv]), but I got a handful of fairly decent surfing shots:

Surfer

Another surfer

And another

Once we got back home, I came across a Praying Mantis whilst hosing the sand off my feet in the garden. Not actually sure it's a Praying Mantis though; out here they have Fake Praying Mantis (no really), so it's probably one of those. Fast little bugger - took about 20 shots and had to throw about 15 of them!

Mantis

Hope you all had a great Christmas day. A sizable chunk of the Crawford clan were gathered in York, many of whom I've not seen in about five years. Managed to get a chat with them on the phone, but it wasn't the same. Really must get my arse in gear and pick up communications with them again.

Music of the moment: Expatriate: 'The Space Between (demo version)

I'm sure our baracuda has free will

2005-12-23T17:49:00.000+10:00

In our pool lives a baracuda. It's job is a simple one, to suck up all the nasty bugs that find their way into the pool at night and expire at the bottom of it, and generally spend around eight hours a day cleaning the bottom and sides of the pool. It's basically an autonomous robot-like thing that moves around the pool using hydrodynamics (apparently), and looks like a cross between a beetle head and a sea urchin (see image below). As it moves around it makes a quick schlurp-schlurp noise (thrumm thrumm if you're underwater and find yourself in it's path), which is basically the sound of it alternately sucking up stuff and propelling itself along with the water it pushes out. Now this thing ain't pretty, and it ain't small either, the diaphragm is about 60cm in diameter, and it's about 50cm tall.

I swear this thing follows me.

I can be at the opposite end of the pool to it; the next thing I know it's simultaneously slurping away at the top of my foot and scaring the living crap out of me. Dave would like to have a word with the designers of this particular baracuda model. For a start, why make it look so scary? What's even more freaky is when it's turned off, and you're minding your own buisness swimming around under the water, then suddenly the surface of the pool starts to undulate and there's a deep throbbing followed by a slurping noise, and it springs to life attaching itself to your head. I think there's something sinister about the way it sucks up all the spiders and roaches and flies then comes after you.

But enough about the killer robot.

Today I thought that I was invincible to UV rays. Unfortunately, the odds were against me. Firstly, the UV index was at extreme today, secondly, I'm a little white English boy, and thirdly, I'm not actually invincible to UV. It wasn't like I was outside for particularly long periods of time either, just a couple of dips in the pool and some time taking photos round-and-about, but now my back and shoulders are a temperature approximating that of magma, and are a lovely shade of beetroot. I'm currently thanking the evolutionary coicidence that created aloe vera (apologies to all you creationists out there).

So life is continuing pretty much unchanged here on the Sunshine Coast. Christmas is now 'only two sleeps away' as all the Coles and Myer adverts keep telling me, and the weather is getting hotter and hotter. NineMSN reckon that it'll be at least 37 on Christmas day, so I'm gonna have to befriend some people with air conditioning pretty quickly...

New CDs:

Missy Higgins: The Sound of White
Spiderbait: Tonight Alright

Music of the moment: The Boat People: Clean

At Benjamin's Request...

2005-12-23T17:33:00.000+10:00

...here is an update.

After a [frankly bizarre] chat on MSN with our mister Johnson, complete with streaming video of my workplace (nice to see people haven't nicked my lovely monitor yet), I set about updating DeviantArt like a good 'un. It's been a long time since I last used the service, and it's now full of so much red tape when it comes to uploading content that I've decided to revert back to the frustrating Blogger way of doing things. Dave: 0, Blogger: 1. Enough said.

So here are the photos:

Waterfall

Butterfly

Another butterfly

Mmm, crispy flesh

2005-12-13T10:35:00.000+10:00

Huzzah! Back again, and this time, with third degree sunburn!

After visiting Brisbane Airport 16 times, I finally made it in to Brisbane itself on Sunday 11th (yea it's been a while since I updated the 'ol blog). I love it. Absolutely fantastic city, and one that I could definately see myself moving to at some point in my life. The whole place (well, the CBD) was spotlessly clean, and there was a general buzz about the place that made you feel relaxed and included. The city is beautiful too - they've managed to strike the perfect balance between modernisation and traditional buildings, and it's all surrounded by tropical plants. They must have some policy on the locals as well, some kinda attractiveness exchange or something. It's like they bus out all the munters and swap them for good looking people in the surrounding areas. There must be some very ugly suburbs nearby...

Brisbane is the type of place where a simple Englishman can be tempted to spend massive amounts of money without thinking about it too much. You walk into a brissie shop and a 'fog of spending' descends upon you and you suddenly lose all control of your credit card. Well at least I did. So I left Brisbane with two stupidly expensive shirts (you can guess what I just typed instead of shirt) and some CDs. At least the CDs were reasonably priced. I got hold of the Go Team's album (which does sound as bass-less in real life, Daz), plus a couple of others:

Triple J Home and Hosed: Ripe 'N' Ready
Benard Fanning (Powderfinger lead singer) - Tea and Sympathy
Xavier Rudd - Food in the Belly
Regurgitator - Jingles (the best of)
Regurgitator - Eduardo and Rodriguez Wage War on T-Wrecks
Spiderbait - Greatest Hits

On Wednesday 14th I flew up to Cairns with my mum, and met my mamie (who'd flown from Sydney) there for a couple of days in northern Queensland. Since I'd not seen my mum in 18 months, she decided to spoil me and put us up in the Bellevue apartments at Trinity Beach. Man, these things were posh. I had the master bedroom suite, which overlooked the ocean. It had aircon that was independent to the main apartment, which had mixed blessings. First night I was too cold, second I was too hot, then on the final night I managed to get it right. I'm a regular Goldilocks me.

On the Thursday we went up into the rainforest on the Kuranda Scenic Railway [there's some photos on my DeviantArt site] and to the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary [more photos on my DeviantArt site]. The sanctuary was amazing, and I went snap happy with the 'ol Nikon (well you would, wouldn't you?). It was a stupidly hot day though with the temperature around 37 degrees, and the humidity up in the 80s. We left Kuranda and took the SkyRail back to Caravonica (which is near Yorkies Knob [smirk]). Whilst in Kuranda I happened across some of Steve Shepherd's work, and of course I had to indulge and buy another piece. This time the piece I got is in Purple Gidgee, which is a very strong and hard to work timber, that turns purple where the bark meets the wood when exposed to light.

Friday saw us up at 6.30 to catch the coach to Cairns so we could board a catamaran to Michaelmas Cay for a spot of diving and snorelling on the Great Barrier Reef. It was brilliant. Did a bit of scuba diving (though couldn't get the hang of equalising my ears properly - ended up evacuating the mask every time as well!) and loads of snorkelling. Saw some clownfish, which was great, and got to swim with a school of about 200 fish with electric blue along the tops of them. Also managed to burn the crown of my head where the the hair parts, as it was in the sun all day whilst my face was underwater.

On the Saturday I went into Cairns and had a mooch around, before boarding possibly the most turbulent flight ever from Cairns to Brisbane. It was like riding a wooden rollercoaster full of drunk chinese businessmen that was belting along at 500mph. I actually thought the plane was going to disintigrate midair. As it turned out, we were flying through storm clouds. We realised just how powerful this storm was when we were on our way back to Buderim, as the storm had felled trees bloking roads (so mum's wee car saw some off road action), and the power was off for 10 hours. No wonder we almost got whiplash midair!

Sunday was much more sedate, spent by the pool relaxing, and on Monday we braved Sunshine Plaza again for some Christmas shopping. Currently I'm trying to find an iPod nano for Jodie (don't say a word, mister Scott-Langley!).

Am gonna update the DeviantArt photos tomorrow (Monday night in the UK), and will post an update when they're available.

Music of the moment: Spiderbait - Four on the Floor

Mmmm, lovely upgrading action

2005-12-09T17:10:00.000+10:00

Just managed to get myself upgraded for the brisbane-singapore-dubai section of my trip home for free. Despite being all hot and bothered, Dave is nevertheless a happy boy.

Will sell soul for air conditioning

2005-12-09T14:23:00.000+10:00

Despite a delay in Dubai, and consequently missing my connection from Sydney to Maroochydore, I finally arrived at the Sunshine Coast airport at about half eleven on Wednesday.

In general the flights were okay - before boarding at Heathrow (and after spending stupid amounts of money in duty free) I got chatting to a girl called Sian who would be traveling all the way through to Sydney with me. She's a hopeless traveler with even more dietary peculiarities than me and was dosing herself up with anti travel sickness pills. Turned out that she would be sitting a few rows behind me on all of the flights, which gave us a good excuse to play with the intercom on the planes!

And speaking of the toys on the plane - on the 14 hour flight from Dubai we were on a swanky new Airbus A340-500 complete with some kinda natural lighting system that went through all times of day (and even had simulated stars)! The plane also had the ICE system on board, which has hundreds of movies, albums, games, all on demand. Watched an entire series of Kath & Kim and a couple of movies - was tempted by the Lord of the Rings trilogy but couldn't be arsed! Plane had a WiFi connection available for only $10, but my tablet was in the hold :o( Ended up sat next to some smelly bloke from Manchester who kept coming out with Daily Mail gems when he wasn't asking me where we were every ten minutes (cos I can read the land). My favourite was when we were flying over Australia somewhere and he said 'It looks like England doesn't it? I suppose that's why they chose it - it's the same but hotter'.

Apart from the missed flight issue, everything else went without hitch, and I landed in 29 degree heat, which has been soaring over the past couple of days. Took advantage of this and had a bit of a photo sesh in the garden yesterday (don't you dare say anything, Peter!):

(above: thems ferns)

(above: some kinda dying palm leaf)

(above: cicada skin)

Yesterday the temperature climbed to around 34 (the pool was at a steady 32) and when night came it was accompanied by an Armageddon style storm that cut off electricity to the house until the morning.

Today I've been helping out in the office and escaping the frankly crazy heat - trouble is we don't have aircon at home, and today is going to be one of the hottest days in years!

Music of the moment: Ben Lee - 'Awake is the new sleep'

The final countdown

2005-11-30T23:38:00.000+10:00

There's now only 100 hours to go till I leave the bitter cold of the UK behind for the summer sun of Queensland, and I thought it best to start a blog thing for when I'm over there instead of sending out massive group emails all over the shop. So Powlo should appreciate that at least!

So this is where you get to find out what I've been up to (if you're that bothered, though I'm not promising any Budapest-esque stories, Lisa). I'll try and post as often as I can, though updates will be random.

Here is a wintery photograph I took with my sexy new camera: